NASA’s Oceanic Remote Sensing Plans for the 1980’s

Abstract

Because oceanic remote sensing is coining of age, we view the next decade as an exciting one, with great potential for oceanography. Not only has the remote sensing community demonstrated a capability for observing the oceans from space, but they—together with the oceanographic community—are well along the way in developing a capability to physically interpret the resulting observations. Still ahead of us is the problem of learning how to cope with the huge quantities of satellite data—orders of magnitude greater than those traditionally encountered in oceanography. Even so, a more fundamental problem is the fact that satellite data are essentially two-dimensional and near-surface in character; and, to have maximum impact on oceanography, we must be able to relate this time-varying two-dimensional near-surface information to the time-varying three-dimensional structure of the ocean. With this in mind, we are working to effect a closer coupling between the remote sensing and oceanographic communities, so that we will be prepared to optimally exploit the oceanic satellite missions planned for the latter part of this decade.